WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? by Mary Colussi, The Chicken Coupe

That is a question I am often asked by friends after they see one of our performances, after they give the obligatory praise. It has many answers, from a slightly offended, “What do you mean?” to an incredibly infuriating “Well, what do you think happens?”

         Endings are always difficult, for both the performer and the viewer. After many a final performance I have gone home and stared at the ceiling in my bedroom, still in costume, wondering what to do now. When an actor takes that final bow, there is always a sense of finality. When will I get to play Beatrice/Maid Marian/a tree again? All right, maybe I wasn’t too sad about the last one, but still. Maybe because its easier and maybe because it’s not as hard, we often don’t have endings in our plays. I’ll allow you a moment of horrified silence.

         Now then. I don’t remember much about my earlier plays, so I mostly have to go on the ones I have done in the past five years. After every single performance, there was at least one person who asked why I fell in love with the guy I hated, which happens a lot, or why that person stopped being evil in time for the curtain call. Well… I can never answer them, at least not to their satisfaction. Usually I’m saved by someone asking me to help clean up. But when I’m not, and the person won’t stop asking questions, you do have to wonder why we don’t write in a clear and concise ending.

         `There is a very simple answer to this question, hidden among some more complex and twisted ones, which I won’t address here. What we do in Coupe is play. We play like we are little kids and we don’t have to worry about science projects and climate change, or science projects about climate change. We play with lines and characters that haven’t been tampered with since the great scriptwriters came up with them. We play and we don’t care what other people think of what we come up with. So, if I had time to come up with a clear and concise answer to “What happens next?” it would be this.

         Our acting has a kind of surreal, ethereal beauty to it, since we are children and we are impossibly cryptic to those who don’t know us. We do plays without endings, or without beginnings. Sometimes there are neither and our characters were just born as they are, right now. It’s like when I was little and my family’s garden, with its decrepit statues and sad flowers, was my stage and no one knew or cared that the characters I created had no past, though they always had a future.

         I don’t always have a chance to come up with something like that, though, so my answer is always different. But, I can promise you this: While we are still in Coupe, and while we are still playing, there will always be an after, even if it doesn’t make sense. What did I do after marrying Robin Hood? Why, I moved to Camelot, of course! What else is there to do in Coupe, other than move on and keep on acting?

Love, Mary C. 

Keep an eye on this girl, I think she’s going places.  EJ